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Tue, 03 Mar 2015 22:37:40 +0000en-UShourly1http://wordpress.org/?v=4.1.1THE DIRECTOR’S CHAIR with Francis Ford Coppola Poster Premierehttp://www.nerdist.com/2015/02/the-directors-chair-with-francis-ford-coppola-poster-premiere/
http://www.nerdist.com/2015/02/the-directors-chair-with-francis-ford-coppola-poster-premiere/#commentsFri, 20 Feb 2015 21:30:45 +0000http://www.nerdist.com/?p=225403Since its premiere in the spring of 2014 featuring horror icon John Carpenter, The Director’s Chair on the El Rey Network has proved to be the best show about entertainment that you’re probably not watching. Featuring candid one-on-one interviews between El Rey co-founder Robert Rodriguez and his friends and colleagues like Carpenter, Guillermo del Toro and Quentin Tarantino, the series is a must-watch for cinephiles.

What I like about The Director’s Chair is that it’s inside baseball without being exclusive. At the end of the day, Rodriguez is not only an admirer of his guests’ work but a true fan, and so the show provides insight and access like no other interview can. Rodriguez even opens up the conversation to other friends and fellow directors by incorporating a segment called “Director Q&A” where he reads email questions from the likes of J. J. Abrams, Eli Roth, John Landis and Edgar Wright.

Coming on Monday, March 2 is the next installment of the series featuring Francis Ford Coppola, the iconic director of The Godfather, Apocalypse Now and The Conversation, among many others. El Rey has recently premiered a special edition poster that was commissioned from artist Joshua Budich commemorating Coppola’s body of work.

The Director’s Chair with Robert Rodriguez and Francis Ford Coppola airs Monday, March 2 at 8PM ET/ 8:30PM PT followed by Coppola’s Academy Award nominated classic The Conversation.

To find El Rey Network in your area click here! Take a look at previous episodes of The Director’s Chair in the clips below.

The Director’s Chair – John Carpenter

The Director’s Chair – Guillermo del Toro

The Director’s Chair – Quentin Tarantino, Vol. 1

The Director’s Chair – Quentin Tarantino, Vol. 2

]]>http://www.nerdist.com/2015/02/the-directors-chair-with-francis-ford-coppola-poster-premiere/feed/1Updates on New FRIDAY THE 13TH and HALLOWEEN Surfacehttp://www.nerdist.com/2015/02/updates-on-new-friday-the-13th-and-halloween-surface/
http://www.nerdist.com/2015/02/updates-on-new-friday-the-13th-and-halloween-surface/#commentsTue, 17 Feb 2015 23:00:36 +0000http://www.nerdist.com/?p=226422Two of the most beloved horror franchises are looking to return with a vengeance. Last week horror fans were treated to significant updates on the progress of the latest installments of both Friday the 13th and Halloween.Friday producer Brad Fuller gave a thorough discussion of the status of the next Friday the 13th film — its release date now pushed to 2016 — and two horror screenwriters have been hired to pen a new chapter in the Halloween franchise.

Brad Fuller Talks Friday the 13th

In an interview with Esquire, Platinum Dunes producer Brad Fuller not only talked candidly about his passion for the Friday the 13th franchise, but gave an update on the many times delayed next movie. “Some movies you do for some reasons and some you do ’cause you just love the source material,” Fuller explained. “And truly this is something that we all love here.”

Fuller continued to talk details of what the next installment of the franchise — number 13 when you count Freddy Vs. Jason — could potentially be about, asking big questions about the mythology of Jason. “There’s always been this supernatural aspect to these movies,” said Fuller. “It defies logic that, you see Jason get killed in every movie, including ours, the 2009 one. And then he comes back and no one’s ever really investigated what that is. So that’s something that I think about a little bit. Like it is supernatural, but what is he? Those are the things that we’re toying with. Nothing has been decided. But those type of things: How does he always come back?”

The next installment of Friday the 13th is scheduled to hit theaters on May 13, 2016.

Screenwriters Officially Hired for New Halloween Movie

Before Jason, before Freddy, there was Michael Myers. John Carpenter’s seminal horror flick Halloween was once the most successful independent film of all time. Last week The Hollywood Reporter broke news that Saw scribes Patrick Melton and Marcus Dunstan have been hired to write the tenth installment of the Halloween franchise. THR reports that the approach to the latest film is “not a remake, not a reboot, and not a reimagining.” Instead, their source refers to it as a “recalibration.” The idea of a “recalibration” is most likely referring to the last two Halloween films which were made by Rob Zombie and saw the origins of Michael Meyers. While Zombie’s ideas were solid, I think it’s safe to say that for most fans his take on Carpenter’s iconic “Shape” didn’t quite land.

In any case, Melton and Dunstan have previously written Saw IV-VII and Piranha 3DD. They also sold a pitch and wrote a script for the CBS Films adaptation of the beloved childhood favorite Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark. Malek Akkad, who is the son of original Halloween executive producer Moustapha Akkad, will produce the new film alongside Mike Stein.

There is no release date for Halloween 10 but we’ll keep you posted as details emerge.

—

What do you think of this news, slasher fans? Are you excited for more action from your favorite bad guys? Will you line up to see a new Friday the 13th or Halloween flick? Tell us your thoughts in the comments section!

]]>http://www.nerdist.com/2015/02/updates-on-new-friday-the-13th-and-halloween-surface/feed/2John Carpenter Discusses LOST THEMES, Scream Queens, and THE THING (Part 2)http://www.nerdist.com/2015/01/john-carpenter-discusses-lost-themes-scream-queens-and-the-thing-part-2/
http://www.nerdist.com/2015/01/john-carpenter-discusses-lost-themes-scream-queens-and-the-thing-part-2/#commentsSat, 31 Jan 2015 00:30:22 +0000http://www.nerdist.com/?p=221711When we sat down with horror icon John Carpenter to discuss the release of his first album John Carpenter’s Lost Themes we talked about his creative process for composing music. Now, we’ve got more with Carpenter as we discuss the importance of music throughout his life, a potential return to directing and his misunderstood-at-the-time-of-release film, the 1982 classic The Thing.

Fans of Carpenter will remember that he has been creating music for films as far back as Dark Star and Assault on Precinct 13. After Halloween, Carpenter even went on to direct the TV movie Elvis where he first worked with frequent collaborator Kurt Russell. Now that Carpenter and his son Cody have been creating music for a while and the release of his first album is upon us, I ask him if music has always been so important in his life.

“Absolutely,” says Carpenter. “My father was a music professor. He got his degree at Eastman School of Music; he was a violin virtuoso. I grew up with classical music in my household. I learned to play the keyboard, the guitar, and I played around with violin, although I had no talent on the violin. But I’ve always had music in me, but my love, my first love, was cinema.”

Is Carpenter listening to anything new that excites him personally? “Absolutely! I love the work of Hans Zimmer… and Trent Reznor’s been doing some really interesting things, movie soundtracks. So yeah, I pay attention.”

Last year at Beyond Fest in Los Angeles, Carpenter took the stage with Jamie Lee Curtis for a presentation of the 1978 horror classic Halloween. Almost 40 years later, the two still had a wonderful chemistry and appeared to be good friends. On the day I spoke with Carpenter about Lost Themes, it was announced that Curtis would lead the cast of Ryan Murphy‘s upcoming horror/comedy anthology show Scream Queens, a moniker that Jamie Lee has worn throughout her career due in large part to Carpenter. When I tell him about the news breaking, Carpenter facetiously replies, “Oh that’s good! Well, you know, Jamie Lee should give me part of her money!”

Photo Credit: Kim Gottlieb-Walker

When I ask if he’d be interested in directing her in an episode of Scream Queens, he quickly replies, “No! God no, God no, no no no no. I’ll let someone else do that!” I laugh and ask him if that meant there would be no more horror in his future, to which he emphatically told me, “NO! God no, I just want to do something new. I don’t want to go back to nostalgia.” Fair enough, but does he have anything in the works after Lost Themes? The Horror Master reveals, “Well, I’m still making music and if the right movie comes along I’d love to make it, but at this time in my life I’m taking it easy. I’m letting you young people do everything!”

Before I let Carpenter go, I feel compelled to talk to him about one of my favorite movies of all time–his 1982 classic The Thing. While The Thing has become one of the most beloved horror films of the last 50 years, at the time of its release it was panned across the board by critics and horror fans alike. For a person coming to it later, this makes absolutely no sense, but when I bring it up to the director, he remembers the negative reaction very well.

“That’s an understatement. People hated it. It was HATED. Especially by the horror fans.” When I tell Carpenter on my own behalf that makes no sense and is a terrible thing, he replies, “Yeah, it was. It’s funny, I thought that was the best film I’d made but everybody dumped on it. But what can I do about it? I can’t do anything about it now.” I felt the need to take it upon myself to tell him once and for all that The Thing is a masterpiece and a truly remarkable movie, to which Carpenter said enthusiastically, “Thank you very much! I appreciate that.”

John Carpenter’s Lost Themes is available on February 3, 2015 from Sacred Bones Records.

]]>http://www.nerdist.com/2015/01/john-carpenter-discusses-lost-themes-scream-queens-and-the-thing-part-2/feed/0John Carpenter Discusses His Debut Album Full Of Perfect Slasher Tunes (Part 1)http://www.nerdist.com/2015/01/john-carpenter-discusses-his-debut-album-full-of-perfect-slasher-tunes-part-1/
http://www.nerdist.com/2015/01/john-carpenter-discusses-his-debut-album-full-of-perfect-slasher-tunes-part-1/#commentsThu, 29 Jan 2015 23:30:37 +0000http://www.nerdist.com/?p=195128John Carpenter delighted fans at Beyond Fest in Los Angeles last year when he revealed that he was working on an entire album of new music that would be released in the near future. Shortly after that reveal, a release date and first single titled “Vortex” was announced. It’s hard to believe that Carpenter, best known as the director of Halloween, The Thing and Escape from New York, has never released an album. His scores have been loved by fans for decades and his theme from Halloween has become an iconic piece of music in the company of John Williams theme for Jaws and Bernard Herrmann’s work in Psycho.

Nerdist had the opportunity to talk with Carpenter about how his album John Carpenter’s Lost Themes came to be, how music has always been an important part of his life, and if he’ll be returning to direct horror anytime soon.

How is it that after a career spanning all forms of media like film, television, music, and video games, that this album finally came about? Carpenter reveals, “It’s a little bit of a story but here it goes. Two or three years ago my son Cody and I would play video games for an hour or so and would go downstairs to my Logic Pro music setup and improvise music for an hour or so and then go back to the video games then go back to the music. This went on for quite a while until I had about an hour’s worth of music between us. Then my music attorney aske, ‘Do you have anything new?’ And I really didn’t expect for this stuff that Cody and I had done so I sent it to her and a couple of months later I had a record deal! That’s how it worked.”

When one listens to Lost Themes, it’s hard to not hear similarities to the anxiety-inducing music of Carpenter’s previous cinematic work. Even though these songs were created independently of films, I couldn’t help wondering if “The Horror Master” had images of Kurt Russell running around in his head while composing his eerie new tracks. Carpenter chuckled and told me, “Well, it doesn’t exactly go like that but I’ve always had images in my head since I was a little kid. Some people might say that’s insanity, but I don’t; I say it’s because I fell in love with movies and I saw the way movies were made and on and on. My approach to making movies is always the story. That’s what counts first. I try not to sketch in the characters because the actors bring all that. But the storytelling, that I can imagine in my head.”

When I remark that it’s a bit of a surprise that Carpenter has a career in film and music that spans decades and yet, somehow in 2015 we’re getting his debut album, the director laughs and says, “Well, you know my scores have been released on records and continue to be but this is the first original music and this is the first music done without an image. This was all done just as an improvisation. That’s what was so much fun to do. And it’s a throwback because I’m an old guy! That’s why. I’m a throwback kind of guy.”

John Carpenter’s Lost Themes is available on February 3, 2015 via Sacred Bones Records.

Stay tuned for Part 2 of our conversation with John Carpenter, which goes live tomorrow!

]]>http://www.nerdist.com/2015/01/john-carpenter-discusses-his-debut-album-full-of-perfect-slasher-tunes-part-1/feed/1Music Dispatch: Is Tom DeLonge Leaving Blink-182? Rihanna, Kanye & McCartney Release Trackhttp://www.nerdist.com/2015/01/music-dispatch-is-tom-delonge-leaving-blink-182-rihanna-kanye-mccartney-release-track/
http://www.nerdist.com/2015/01/music-dispatch-is-tom-delonge-leaving-blink-182-rihanna-kanye-mccartney-release-track/#commentsMon, 26 Jan 2015 23:30:41 +0000http://www.nerdist.com/?p=221645Welcome back to another Monday edition of Music Dispatch, readers! The big news over the weekend was the much hyped collaboration from Rihanna, Kanye West and Sir Paul, so we’ll kick things off with that. But we also have the trailer for the upcoming Daft Punk-inspired film, Eden, a glimpse of Run The Jewel’sMeow The Jewels, and a Beastie Boys cover by none other than Slipknot & Korn. We’ve also got news that Blink-182 guitarist Tom DeLonge has exited the band after more than 20 years.Through thick and thin, the Music Dispatch has got you today.

Following the recent release of their first collaboration, “Only One”, West and McCartney recruited pop megastar Rihanna for “FourFiveSeconds”, released officially as a Rihanna track, and available now on her website and iTunes. Like “Only One”, the track is mellow and simple, with McCartney strumming on an acoustic guitar or the organ, while Kanye croons and Rihanna completely carries the track with her stunning gospel singer’s range. This was the track that Kanye played for a small audience of iHeartRadio employees last week, and, rumor has it, will be on both Rihanna’s and Kanye’s upcoming albums. Fun fact: the braille across the track art spells out “FourFiveSeconds’. [Consequence of Sound]

Death Cab for Cutie, operating now without founding member Chris Walla, have released the lyrics video for the single, “Black Sun”, off their March 31st release, Kintsugi. The band will begin their North American tour in April, supported by The Antlers. [Consequence of Sound]

A video posted by thereallyrealelp (@thereallyrealelp) on Jan 23, 2015 at 7:12pm PST

Run The Jewels’ producer and rapper, El-P, began making good on the Kickstarter promise to bring an all-cat version of RTJ2 to realization, posting a series of Instagram videos documenting his progress with the opening track, “Jeopardy”. At one point, the certainly insanity-inducing endeavor brings El-P to ask, “oh my god what am i doing with my life.” Despite the jokey origins of the project, Mass Appeal reports that the album will feature “an impressive list of collaborators including Portishead’s Geoff Barrow, Just Blaze, Zola Jesus, Dan the Automator, Alchemist, Baauer, Prince Paul, Boots, Nick Hook, skywlkr, and Solidified Sun.”

Screening at Sundance this week is the French film, Eden, a quasi-autobiographical, somewhat fictionalized story of Daft Punk and the electronic scene of the 1990s. The film is written by DJ Sven Love of Cheers (the music duo; not the show), and endorsed by Daft Punk, who allow three of their tracks in the film. The above trailerpromises the film will have “the robotic aspect of electronic with the warmth of soul”. [Pigeons & Planes]

Nineties nu metal rockers, Korn and Slipknot, visited London’s Wembley Arena on the European leg of their “Prepare for Hell” tour, and had some fun by teaming up for an appropriately rambunctious cover of the Beastie Boys’ “Sabotage”. Get out of the way, Security Guard, we are trying to rage here! [Rolling Stone]

Remember last week when we shared the news that Topps was creating a set of baseball cards for first-pitchers, including Eddie Vedder and Jack White? Another musician in the deck will be rapper 50 Cent, whose infamously bad pitch is inarguably one of the worst in recent memory. Also one of the best. The MLB Network certainly seems to thinks so, awarding the good-humored rapper with an award for “Most Memorable First Pitch” at their Social Media Awards. You can’t ever lose with a strong sports blooper. [MTV]

Countlessreports have flown about today that Tom DeLonge left Blink-182 to pursue non-musical endeavors. Though the band issued a statement that Alkaline Trio’s Matt Skiba would be subbing in on their upcoming tour, Tom took to Facebook to announce that his departure from the band was news to him and that he had no intentions to leave. Once again, the internet got ahead of itself and we might just have to wait a little bit to see what actually happened here.

Singer-songwriter and jellybean connoisseur, Kina Grannis, has a new, very Magritte-y music video for her track, “Oh Father”, directed by Jane By Design actress, Erica Dasher. Take a look and give a listen above.

A portion of the money Sam Smith has made from his track “Stay With Me”, will not be staying with him. The melancholy musician and his co-writers have settled a claim of copyright infringement from Tom Petty’s publishers, acknowledging that the track borrows heavily from Petty’s 1989 “I Won’t Back Down” (It’s always wise to settle with a man who insists he won’t back down). If “Stay With Me” wins the Grammy for song of the year, the question remains which section of the trophy Smith will hand over to Petty. [USA Today]

]]>http://www.nerdist.com/2015/01/music-dispatch-is-tom-delonge-leaving-blink-182-rihanna-kanye-mccartney-release-track/feed/3Directors Cuts: Top 5 John Carpenter Movieshttp://www.nerdist.com/2015/01/directors-cuts-top-5-john-carpenter-movies/
http://www.nerdist.com/2015/01/directors-cuts-top-5-john-carpenter-movies/#commentsMon, 19 Jan 2015 21:00:45 +0000http://www.nerdist.com/?p=216257Like Doug Benson, I also love movies. More than that, I love getting into specific filmmakers and seeing all I can of their work. A particular director’s oeuvre and growth and the like is something I find fascinating. And so, friends, this is where this series will come in. Each week-ish, I’m going to pick a different director, one who’s done multiple great works, and try to rank my top five favorite of their films. Note: For this I’ll only be looking at feature films. So ones that have done exceptional TV or short film work won’t get those taken into consideration. Also Note: These are simply my choices, my opinion. I’m not saying definitively the five are the best categorically, they’re just the best as far as I’m concerned.

I don’t want to give myself any breathing room, either, so to start with, I’ve chosen one of my very favorites, and one who has made no fewer than 8 movies I legitimately love and another 5 I think are quite good. That director is John Carpenter, a man who revolutionized sci-fi and horror and made a string of fantastic movies in a career that dates back 40 years. His work is some of the most iconic and indelible of the 1980s especially, and his films have become staples of double features and retrospectives. But which five would I consider his best? The top two are very easy; the other three have proven exceedingly difficult.

5) They Live (1988)
This is a movie that grows on you. At first, you might laugh off the weird tone, the highly political social commentary, Roddy Piper’s very Canadian accent, or that now-infamous 45 minute fight scene between Piper and Keith David which accomplishes little more narratively than making one guy put on a pair of sunglasses. But, after awhile you’ll start to realize Carpenter was actually way ahead of his satirical time and used that off-kilter humor to make his point more effectively. What if everybody in power was an alien overlord and what if only one unemployed day-laborer knew the truth? It’s a quiet invasion, and it’s underneath our very noses. Inspired a bit by one of Carpenter’s favorite writers, Nigel Kneale, They Live is a bit weird and a bit out-there but it’s certainly become one of his most iconic.

4) In the Mouth of Madness (1994)
The last of what I would consider Carpenter’s truly great films, In the Mouth of Madness is actually quite unlike a lot of his work. It’s dark and apocalyptic, sure, but it’s about psychological horror, about the loss of self and the loss of the mind, and it’s about big, hulking greater evil than anything we could possibly imagine. Written by Michael De Luca, the movie feels a lot more like a Stephen King novel than a John Carpenter movie, with a healthy amount of H.P. Lovecraft thrown in for good measure. The writer as both creator and destroyer is a really terrifying idea, especially if it becomes the all-encompassing behemoth of the end-times. This is the movie that should have rejuvenated his career following a few duffs, but it instead ushered in a few more just-okay to not-very-good films to round out the 1990s.

3) Escape from New York (1981)
This is a movie that started awesome but has become even more so as the years have gone on and the post-apocalyptic movie landscape had grown exponentially. This is a man-on-a-mission movie with a very definite ticking clock element and a setting straight out of hell, making it sort of a Heart of Even Darker Darkness. Kurt Russell’s Snake Plissken is the coolest mothereffer you’re ever likely to see onscreen, complete with eye patch and growly Clint Eastwood impression and his mission is to go into the island of Manhattan, which is now a cut-off prison colony, and retrieve the president of the United States whose plane went down in there. If Snake succeeds, he’ll go free. If he doesn’t, a thing in his neck will explode and he’ll be dead. But everybody thinks he’s dead already anyway. Just a super-badass sci-fi action movie, and a very, very influential one.

Now, those three were the hard ones to choose for me because I also love Assault on Precinct 13, The Fog, and Big Trouble in Little China almost equally as much. I’ll probably revise this list in a couple of years because even now I’m not super sure. BUT, as far as my top 2 are concerned, nothing’s ever changing, except maybe which order I put 1 and 2. Today, though, the order is this:

2) Halloween (1978)
I can’t get over how much I adore this movie. I think it does everything right. It’s the simplest of stories but done in the most artful way possible. We follow a bunch of teenage babysitters on Halloween night who are being stalked by an escaped mental patient in a mask for no apparent reason other than they’re there. And from that absurdly basic framework, Carpenter and co-writer/producer Debra Hill were able to instill a huge amount of character into the three girls and the two little kids, as well as the movie’s Ahab Dr. Loomis played with benevolent creepiness by the great Donald Pleasence. And that driving, haunting score will exist in your brain and bones until the end of your life. The sequels may have made Michael Myers a monster, but it was this movie that made him a legend.

1) The Thing (1982)
And while we’re on the subject of perfection, Carpenter’s best film is another example of just how immensely talented the man is. This is one of the most paranoid and unsettling movies you’re likely to watch, but it’s also a thrill-ride and a delightful gross-out at times. A group of men are stationed at a research facility on Antarctica and are introduced to an alien entity that takes over organisms and blends in perfectly. Anyone could be The Thing, and if it gets to a more populated area, everyone, everyTHING on Earth could be next. A stellar cast led by Kurt Russell again and Wilford Brimley make the implausible scenarios feel reel as tensions flair, and the utterly gorgeous effects work by the legendary Rob Bottin are still impressive even in the age of CGI, and moreso if you’ve seen the wholly unimpressive prequel/remake. It’s truly my favorite John Carpenter movie and one that I discover more things about each and every time I watch it.

And there we are. The first installment of Directors Cuts in the books. Do you think I did a good job? Did I completely get it wrong? Let me know in the comments below and I’ll try to do better next week.

]]>http://www.nerdist.com/2015/01/directors-cuts-top-5-john-carpenter-movies/feed/4The ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK Reboot is a Go at Foxhttp://www.nerdist.com/2015/01/the-escape-from-new-york-reboot-is-a-go-at-fox/
http://www.nerdist.com/2015/01/the-escape-from-new-york-reboot-is-a-go-at-fox/#commentsWed, 14 Jan 2015 05:00:45 +0000http://www.nerdist.com/?p=217323“I heard you were dead!” – The Duke, Escape From New York (1981)

Don’t believe everything you hear. After a cutthroat bidding war, Fox has emerged victorious in the battle for the rights to remake John Carpenter’s 1981 classic Escape From New York.

Carpenter will serve as executive producer and have a degree of creative control on the project. Fox’s Mike Ireland shepherded the project and will continue to help guide it as it hopefully launches a new franchise.

In the original film, Kurt Russell played Snake Plissken, a sleeveless badass with an eyepatch and near-constant sneer who is tapped to rescue the President of the United States after Air Force One crashes in New York. Except this isn’t the fun, restaurant-filled New York City we know; it has been transformed into a maximum security prison full of dangerous criminals. With only 22 hours, Plissken must infiltrate the city, liberate the president, and a special tape containing a speech that is the key to defusing international warfare. If he fails, he’ll be blown to smithereens thanks to the explosives with which he has been wired.

This isn’t the first time that Hollywood has attempted to reboot the series. Back in 2000, John Carpenter, Debra Hill, and Kurt Russell were planning a TV version of the franchise that would take place in the near future in a world devastated by natural disasters. Snake Plissken would have served as a President-appointed agent of the United Nations to wander the world and try to save the last vestiges of humanity. The head writer of the series? None other than Howard Chaykin. Alas and alack, it never came to pass.

There have also long been rumors about a third film, titled Escape From Earth, that would have seen Snake Plissken trying to escape from a planet Earth on it’s way to total armageddon, but it never came to pass.

Studios had tried to remake the film in the past too, but none had the involvement of John Carpenter. Rumors mentioned that the film was ready to be cast with Charlie Hunnam (Sons of Anarchy) in the lead. Word on the street also has it that Chris Hemsworth was rumored to be eyed for the part.

While I have no doubt that many other fantasy casting and rumor-mongering pieces will emerge in the days, weeks, and months ahead, let me give you one name that merits serious consideration for Snake Plissken 2.0: Emily Blunt.

]]>http://www.nerdist.com/2015/01/the-escape-from-new-york-reboot-is-a-go-at-fox/feed/5Adam Wingard & Simon Barrett Discuss THE GUEST & the Ever Popular Male Antiherohttp://www.nerdist.com/2015/01/adam-wingard-simon-barrett-discuss-the-guest-the-ever-popular-male-antihero/
http://www.nerdist.com/2015/01/adam-wingard-simon-barrett-discuss-the-guest-the-ever-popular-male-antihero/#commentsTue, 06 Jan 2015 16:30:44 +0000http://www.nerdist.com/?p=184066It’s no secret that this writer loved Adam Wingard and Simon Barrett’s genre thriller The Guest. The movie was most definitely my favorite movie of 2014 and now, after what feels like an eternity, the film is available to own on Blu-ray.

Wingard explained, “I guess one of the main points of that is the genesis of the project really came from, Simon and I had both read this book called Shock Value, which is a deconstruction of 70s and 80s horror films following the relationships of Dan O’Bannon, mainly, and John Carpenter, and the way that they went their separate ways and reshaped the face of horror, literally. What that book does brilliantly is breaks down the way that people found things scary in that era and the way that the faceless horror became the new terror. So you had Michael Meyers who is the ominous [figure] literally called ‘The Shape’ because there’s no defining features with him. He blends in but there’s no defining characteristics of his humanity, a very Lovecraftian face–also Alien as well. You can’t really tell what you’re looking at when you look at the alien. I remember watching that for the first time spending the whole movie trying to find his eyes and it doesn’t register in the same way. Fast forward a couple decades and those are still the things that people are basing everything on and I don’t know that that’s definitely scary so much any more because we’ve seen so much of that.”

Barrett elaborated, “It’s just an interesting kind of cultural thing there that there is this weird rise in TV especially and antiheroes with Bryan Cranston’s character [on Breaking Bad] and Steve Buscemi’s character [on Boardwalk Empire] and every single character out right now.”

Wingard continues, “I feel like antiheroes have come and gone in different incantations. Like in the 70s, I felt like the version of the antihero [was] the Gene Hackman, French Connection, sleazed out, depressed kind of guy… And I think that’s kind of changing the definition of that and evolving in a bunch of different ways.”

“I wonder if that’s based on a cultural guilt,” says Barrett. “I wonder if we [look to] antiheroes in periods like the 70s with Vietnam and now after the Iraq war and after America has collectively –”

Wingard agreed, “Yeah, because we’re all conflicted and kind of ashamed but at the same time we still ‘support the troops–‘”

“Yeah! Because we’re like, ‘Sorry about ruining the world…’ and Walter White is the perfect encapsulation of that so I feel like there’s kind of a societal thing going on with the rise of that,” Barrett concluded.

While the antihero in film and television has progressed over the years, one thing that was consistent about the inspirations for the character — “The Shape” from Halloween and Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Terminator — is that they are both arguably physically imposing creatures. When casting the role of David, how did they first envision him? Was it initially important for them to find an actor who was physically threatening? Not at all, according to Barrett and Wingard. “The personality was more important,” says screenwriter Barrett. “I mean, going back to what I just mentioned, if he was built like The Rock it’s kind of hard to imagine the family saying, ‘Please come stay with us, big giant muscle person!’ And it was kind of important that he feel very normal and that was what we wanted to play with. So physicality didn’t matter as much, we just wanted him to be very attractive to them and the degree to which he was intimidating or imposing would be sold more through his actions than his actual physical build. That was at least the way it was written and we did end up very much going in that direction.”

Wingard agreed. “Yeah, if he were huge or something it would be a little less interesting to me, to be honest. It’s more interesting that you think that he’s charming and nice and kind and that he has this dark undercurrent, because really at the end of the day the movie is more about the relationships of the characters than it is about the action and all of the danger built in within that. And so I think it would have been a big mistake to cast for that type of thing.

Barrett added, “Yeah, it would have been a little bit … not subtle.”

—

The Guest, starring Dan Stevens, written by Simon Barrett and directed by Adam Wingard, is available on VOD and Blu-ray now.

As the holidays roll around, sometimes it feels like a mystery what to buy for, how shall we say, Halloween types. Sure, there are box sets to go around and action figures to boot, but what is a gift, a real good gift for any cinematic horror nerd? We’ve told you about the custom made pop-up book from the creators of the indie horror hit The Babadook and genre favorites Adam Wingard and Simon Barrett’s latest The Guest, which is now available to own on VOD with Blu-ray coming in January, but for the horror nerd who can’t wait until 2015 for present delivery, Shock Value by Jason Zinoman is the gift for you.

In the introduction alone, Zinoman mentions that there are now classes taught on exploitation cinema and that Alien has become one of the biggest franchises known to audiences. But who were the players who made this happen? Who were the people behind the scenes of the genre in the 60s and 70s? There are many to consider, from Alfred Hitchcock and William Castle struggling with their relationship to rapidly evolving audiences to the “New Horror” gang who were not bound by the formalities and the polite nature of those who came before them. Shock Value explores the major turning point in the genre by using text that is straight forward and matter of fact but also incredibly researched and fun. It makes you feel like you were there, sitting at USC with Carpenter and O’Bannon or cutting The Last House on the Left in the northeast with Craven and Cunningham.

The book covers the inception and production of obvious horror classics like Halloween, Night of the Living Dead, The Exorcist, The Last House on the Left, Rosemary’s Baby, Carrie and The Texas Chainswaw Massacre while not forgetting the work of Mario Bava, Dario Argento, Brian DiPalma, Stephen King, Steven Spielberg and Francis Ford Coppola, David Cronenberg and many, many others. What were these guys up to when they were breaking into the movie business through horror? Where did they come from, who did they work with? Why did they not just want but need to make these films and on their terms? Told in a way that is never gossipy and always informative, Shock Value takes a look behind the scenes at a revolutionary time not only in independent cinema but in horror cinema, specifically.

Zinoman is also savvy enough to realize that horror is not a genre that will allow itself to be contained. He draws parallels between horror and Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and Harold Pinter’s The Birthday Party, as well as citing current genre bending examples like the Coen Brothers Academy Award winning feature No Country For Old Men. Shock Value is a book that finally takes horror seriously and is required reading for genre fans and general cinephiles alike.

Shock Value: How a Few Eccentric Outsiders Gave Us Nightmares, Conquered Hollywood, and Invented Modern Horror by Jason Zinoman is available now.

Halloween On-Set Photo Credit: Kim Gottlieb-Walker, who also has a kick-ass book out that would be a great gift for a horror fan called On Set with John Carpenter.

]]>http://www.nerdist.com/2014/12/book-review-jason-zinomans-shock-value/feed/1Music Dispatch: Kendrick’s Colbert Performance Was Incredible & St. Vincent Wows With ‘Birth In Reverse’http://www.nerdist.com/2014/12/music-dispatch-kendricks-colbert-performance-was-incredible-st-vincent-wows-with-birth-in-reverse/
http://www.nerdist.com/2014/12/music-dispatch-kendricks-colbert-performance-was-incredible-st-vincent-wows-with-birth-in-reverse/#commentsWed, 17 Dec 2014 23:30:06 +0000http://www.nerdist.com/?p=211226As we bear through our first of eight Hanukkah Hangovers (or is it Chanukah Changovers?), keeping faith alive we’ll rally in time for part two of this marathon of celebrations, how about joining us in some quiet conversation about music news? Today, we have an excellent new video from Panda Bear, a bonkers new track from Kendrick Lamar that he debuted on the Colbert Report, and a spinning top that shares a striking resemblance to Dr. Dre. Please, leave the overhead lights off, thanks.

Is there anyone who understands music as completely and crafts music as masterfully as Annie Clark (besides maybe collaborator and How Music Works author David Byrne). Gently reminding everyone to include her on their year’s end Best-Of lists, St. Vincent’s new video for “Birth In Reverse” has her thrashing among celestial bodies, where she rightfully belongs within the pantheon of rock gods. [Consequence of Sound]

Brooklyn Academy of Music’s BAMcinematek is hosting a retrospective on the illustrious career of horror/sci-fi/action filmmaker John Carpenter, which will be titled [insert dramatic musical sting here] “John Carpenter: Master of Fear.” Carpenter is widely regarded not only for his breadth of work behind the camera, but also for his work behind the synthesizer, composing the scores for nearly all of his films, including the nerve-racking theme to Halloween. This retrospective coincides with Carpenter’s debut solo release, Lost Themes (watch a cool auto-generated music video for the track “Vortex”) on February 3rd. On February 5th, the auteur himself will be on hand at BAM for a Q&A with NPR’s Brooke Gladstone (of On The Media). The deluxe edition of the album will also include remixes by the likes of Zola Jesus,Dean Hurley, and JG Thirlwell.

K-pop continues it’s merciless and unstoppable march towards music world domination through an alliance with dubstep and electronic big cheeses Skrillex and Diplo.The track, “Dirty Vibe”, was a collaboration between the two EDM headliners, who then introduced it to G-Dragon, of the K-pop boy band Big Bang, and CL, of the girl group 2NE1, for lyrics. Both G-Dragon and CL are featured heavily in the high-energy, brash, Die Antwoordian video from Red Bull Music.

Panda Bear, aka Noah Benjamin Lennox of Animal Collective, has a new album coming out in the first month of the new year called Panda Bear Meets The Grim Reaper. The second single is the otherworldly “Boys Latin”, with a fittingly otherworldly, breath-takingly beautiful animated music video by Encyclopedia Pictura directors Isaiah Saxon and Sean Hellfritsch. Whatever you do, don’t touch that land-anemone! [Creative Review]

We haven’t heard too much from Kendrick Lamar’s much anticipated forthcoming album, which made his appearance as the final guest performer on The Colbert Report, where he premiered a stirring, jazzy new track, all the more special. [Pigeons & Planes]. Between this track and D’Angelo‘s new album, we are ending on an exceptionally strong note in 2014.

Wiz Khalifa samples Mac DeMarco’s dreamy “Chambers of Reflection” for his “Smoke Chambers” freestyle. It’s the perfect track for relaxing on the couch, watching The Eric Andre Show on mute (where Wiz and Mac were recently both guests). [Pigeons & Planes]

The 17th Annual Punk Rock Bowling And Music Festival has announced the extensive lineup for it’s May 22-25th event in Las Vegas, Nevada. Rancid, Dropkick Murphys and Refused will headline, with The Mighty Mighty Bosstones, Murder City Devils, Conflict, Discharge, Turbonegro, Bad Manners, and Sick Of It All, Jello Biafra and the Guantanamo School of Medicine, Anti-Flag, Swingin’ Utters, A Wilhelm Scream, The Business, Bombshell Rocks, The Muffs, Mahones, Sniper 66, PEARS, I.R.A., Success!, Get Dead, Avenue Rockers, Eliza Battle, Sounds of Threat, and Battle Born also confirmed. Tickets go on sale January 10th and are available through Punk Rock Bowling.

Artist and pun-lover Hannah Rothstein has come up with the must-have, why-didn’t-I-think-of-that toy of the Hanukkah season: Dr. Dreidel. She explains on her site that each face has been chosen to correlate with the “aftermath” of the spin:

-ג Gimmel, ‘take all,’ is a dreidel player’s dream. It gets a thumbs up from a happy Dr. Dre.
-ה Hay, ‘take half,’ is no reason to party, but isn’t too shabby, hence the mildly smug portrait or Dr. Dre.
-נ Nun, ‘nothing happens,’ is a boring outcome. A dead-pan Dr. Dre affirms this.
-ש Shin, ‘put one in,’ is pretty depressing; the dreidel player loses an M & M or other such playing piece. But shins are seldom a chronic problem in dreidel. Dr. Dre’s definitely overreacting.

Though Rothstein does not appear to be selling the Dr. Dreidel yet, we would like to add our names to the waiting list. Packaging and laser etching was provided by Chris McCoy of you3Dit. [BoingBoing]